1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system that uses communication lines connecting participants from various locations, such as personal computers connected via the internet, to a central computer which conducts a real-time auction of tickets to sporting and entertainment events.
2. Background of the Invention
The established method of selling tickets to sporting and entertainment events involves pre-setting inflexible prices then releasing the tickets for sale at a box office or by phone. This method has a number of shortcomings. Typically, each sale involves employees taking time-consuming individual orders and trying to describe the prices and seat locations to customers. Another shortcoming with this method is that especially for premium events, it can be highly inconvenient and sometimes impossible for the purchaser to access the sale due to demand. Moreover, for practical reasons, prices are assigned to tickets in large blocks, while, in reality, purchasers often consider tickets within a block to have a wide ranging continuum of values; and these market values can be very hard to estimate before the tickets are sold. Largely because of these shortcomings, many premium tickets are sold for substantially less than their market value. Generally, these shortcomings exist even with new automated methods involving phone or internet sales since the number of tickets is limited and the selling system is still fundamentally the same; with xe2x80x9cfirst-come-first-servedxe2x80x9d orders taken for pre-priced tickets.
Although it is widely known that the market values some tickets at a substantial premium over face value, there has been no system available for accurately establishing and selling these tickets at their market value. Logistically, auctioning the tickets has not been feasible due to the large quantity of unique seats and even larger quantity of buyers wishing to purchase them.
A few auction systems have been developed that operate using the internet as the communications mode. These systems have been used to auction items such as computer equipment, artwork, and special items for charity. However, these systems are not suitable for use in connection with a real-time mass auction of event tickets. With the currently operating systems, generally the items being sold are of a small quantity or individually unique. In most of the currently operating systems, the items for sale are individually listed, and individually bid upon using e-mail over a period of days or weeks. While, the currently operating systems are useful for such limited purposes, they have several shortcomings.
One such shortcoming arises from the use of e-mail to place bids and to update participants of their bid status. While in theory e-mail is instantaneous, there are occasional routing delays of which the sender is often not immediately aware. In an auction of a slow, deliberate nature such as those presently operating, this is not a great concern. However, in a fast pace auction with numerous participants some bids could be lost as delayed e-mail, unbeknownst to the participant.
An additional problem with the e-mail approach is that time may elapse before the bid information is read and applied. Therefore, the participant may not get instantaneous feedback on other bids which may be taking place simultaneously. The participant often must wait for some period of time to learn if the bid is successful. If the participant has a strategy for bidding on a very desirable item, the participant must return to the auction numerous times to follow its progression.
Most currently operating systems provide some general bid status data, usually a minimal amount of information such as xe2x80x9ccurrentxe2x80x9d high bid. This xe2x80x9ccurrentxe2x80x9d high bid is updated by periodically reviewing the bids received, and entering the highest bid to date. Therefore, these xe2x80x9ccurrentxe2x80x9d bids are not current up to the bids received, and entering the highest bid to date Therefore, these xe2x80x9ccurrentxe2x80x9d bids are not current up to the second. Moreover, if there are many of a particular item, especially such as event tickets having a continuum of values, participants need to know considerably more than the high bid information in order to make an informed bidding decision.
Currently operating systems do not provide bid status information updates independent of solicitation of the information from participants. Once the internet auction site is accessed, the information conveyed may become outdated as it is being viewed. Again this would be quite unfavorable for fast-paced auctions. Therefore, even with auction sites which were actually being updated real-time, a participant would need to continually re-access the site in order to keep information truly updated.
One internet auction system, xe2x80x9consalexe2x80x9d at http://www.onsale.com/ attempts to overcome the e-mail auction problems by automatically updating its internet site. However, like the other internet auction sites, onsale conducts relatively slow, deliberate sales, and still relies on e-mail to transmit some of the bid information. In addition, although the onsale auction site is automatically updated, it does not automatically present this information to participants. As explained above, participants need to continually re-access the site in order to keep information truly updated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,928 details an auction system for used cars that is capable of interactive, essentially real-time auctioning. Instead of internet based, this used car auctioning system is constructed with a 4-level hierarchy of computers networked to a plurality of auto dealers terminals. At each level, the bids received by the computer are processed and only select bids are transmitted to the next level. The bids are raised in increments of 3000 yen and the participants may bid via a single signal indicating a xe2x80x9cyesxe2x80x9d in response to the bid being raised. This system is based on the traditional auction format, and is used to sell one item or lot at a time. When a car has been auctioned, a disc is loaded by each dealer into his terminal which shows the photograph of the next car to be auctioned. Bidding is limited to a predetermined group of auto dealers. Because the structure of this system is hierarchical, i.e. not on the internet, it is not practical for use in wide-spread auctions available to consumers. Because of the methodical nature of this system, selling a progression of single items with incremented bids, it is geared for low volume sales of items with relatively high values.
Recently tickets have been made available for purchase on the internet, for example at http.www.ticketmaster.com/ but not in an auction format, as is needed to sell certain tickets at their market prices. At this internet site, sales are of the traditional pre-set pricing, xe2x80x9cfirst-come-first-servedxe2x80x9d format.
Considering the selling of a large number of tickets to an event, there are unique circumstances which present challenges not manifested in selling other items. For example, in a particular auction, all the tickets may be for the same venue, date, time, and performance. However, each of these tickets also possesses the very unique characteristic of seat location. This characteristic can dramatically effect the ticket value. Ticket values typically vary widely, yet in a continuum from closest to farthest from the performance area. Thus, it is not practical to mass the tickets into simple generic blocks to be auctioned. Nor is it practical to list and auction each ticket individually, since this could present auction participants with a prohibitively large number of individual auctions, and no practical way to obtain contiguous seats. Accordingly, there exists a need for a system which can, within a single, clear format, auction a large number of items with a continuum of values, each at its market price. Furthermore, this system needs to apply logic in sorting bids based not only on price, but on clustering requirements to ensure that within a multiple-ticket bid, the seats are adjoining. This would require a database configuration unlike that employed by the prior art.
Moreover, given the furious pace of sales for many premium tickets, there exists the unique and as yet, unmet challenge of providing instant, automatic, comprehensive feedback for status of a relatively complex arrangement of standing bids. Frequently the more popular sporting and entertainment events sell all available tickets in a matter of a few minutes. The number of tickets to these events may reach into the hundreds of thousands. A practicable auction of tickets for such an event would require a system uniquely designed to process this large volume while presenting an updated, clear and informative view of the proceedings to all participants. It would be logical to presume that efficient conveyance of bid information for a large, complex pattern of bids would require a graphical representation of the bid standings. Although some internet auctions employ graphical representation of objects for sale, none employ graphical representation of bid status.
Another need for on-line auction systems is a method of convincing bidders to place their bids early instead of waiting to bid at the last minute before the auction closes. As mentioned previously, on-line auctions are typically conducted over a set period of time. With these systems, bidders often wait until the last possible second before auction closing to place their bids in an attempt to block subsequent bidders from making higher bids. Such actions by bidders not only keeps the price of the auctioned item undesirably low, but sometimes results in a large quantity of bids just before auction closing which the on-line system is not capable of handling. Thus, it would be advantageous for an on-line auction system that provides incentives for bidders to place their bids early in the auction rather than waiting until the last minute.
In spite of their shortcomings, the above mentioned prior art systems are useful for their respective intended purposes. However, given their limitations, and the above noted unique circumstances for mass ticket sales, it is simply not practical or feasible to apply any of the prior art to the particular task of auctioning a large volume of event tickets.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a computer controlled auctioning system, in which an unlimited number of participants may have simultaneous access to the desired event tickets. The above stated needs as well as others are fulfilled by the present invention through a system constructed to sell a large number of tickets in a very short time, each said ticket or group of tickets being sold for a value set by existing market forces. The system provides participants with simple, yet informative graphical standing bid information on the entire stock of tickets available, and allows them real-time bidding interaction. This system can achieve such sales even for events of extremely high public interest, without excluding any potential purchasers.
The present invention achieves said objectives by employing a computer controlled event ticket auctioning system which receives and evaluates bid information records received from a plurality of remote terminals, said bid information records corresponding to bids for one or more seats within a venue and corresponding to at least one particular event, said venue having a plurality of sections, each section having a plurality of seats.
The automated event ticket auctioning system is comprised of a memory storing a plurality of previously accepted bid information records, said records each including identification information, section identification, quantity information, and bid price information. The automated event ticket auctioning system is further comprised of a central controlling computer operably connected to the memory and operable to receive a message including a received bid information record from one of a plurality of remote terminals through a communication system, determine a lowest minimum acceptable bid value corresponding to the received section information using the previously accepted bid information records stored in the memory, and store the received bid information record if a value represented by the received bid price information exceeds the lowest minimum acceptable bid value.
The central controlling computer is further operable to, in a like manner, receive, evaluate and store if acceptable, subsequent bids received and to stop receiving subsequent messages after a predetermined time period.
Within the automated event ticket auctioning system, each previously accepted bid information record includes rank information based on the section information and the bid price information, and the central controlling computer is further operable to assign a rank to each received bid information record based on its section identification, its bid price information, and the previously accepted bid information records.
After stopping receiving subsequent messages, the central controlling computer is further operable to associate one or more particular seats of the venue with a previously accepted bid information record based on the rank information and the section information of each of a plurality of previously accepted bid information records.
The automated event ticket auctioning system further includes a programmed graphical representation method designed to efficiently convey to auction participants useful standing bid information across the entire event venue, allowing seat bid price locations to be quantified in an effective manner.
The system further includes programmed methods for ensuring contiguous grouping of seat location within each multiple ticket bid, and for ensuring that the standing bid information is automatically updated on a real-time basis and presented as such to all auction participants; said programmed method employing HTML programming features such as the recently available META refresh (a client pull type browser directive) or the multipart/mixed MIME format (a server push type browser directive).
Participants may access this system from remote sites using terminals such as personal computers, via telephone lines or other means of communication. The status of bids and seat locations are conveyed on graphic displays of the venue seating arrangement which are updated on a real-time basis for all participants to view. Participants may place bids of any amount, subject to pre-determined limits, and cancel, raise, or lower bids at will. In addition, participants may view their personal bid standings and the updated overall bid standings without having to continually re-access the auction site. Through the participants""remote terminals, the personal bid requests are sent to the host computer which immediately processes, and sorts the bids according to section and price. The central computer immediately updates and displays the new bid standing order. When the auction is closed, the bids become fixed and the physical transaction can occur.
The system further includes the ability for participants to limit their bids to particular types of seats such as front row seats or aisle seats. Additionally, the system will allow participants to lock-in their seats before auction closing upon the payment of a premium. Also, the system provides for proxy bidding which allows participants to automatically increase bid amounts to match subsequent higher bids. The system also provides incentives for compelling bidders to place bids well in advance of auction closing.